A blog about me, my Standard Poodle, Teddy, and whatever else I feel like including.
"[Poodles] are Labradors with a college education. After a day of retrieving, your Lab wants to curl up and snore in front of the fire. A poodle wants to be a fourth at bridge and tell naughty stories." -Anne Rogers Clark

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Teddy the Poo's Blustery Week

As you can see from the title, it's been an odd and extremely windy week. On Tuesday, we had extreme winds, which is really unusual for us. It was so strong, that I was looking around for the funnel cloud. I had an afternoon meeting, and when I got out of the car, I could barely walk into the building. I could have sworn I was in Chicago. When I walked Teddy later, I was afraid he was going to blow away. Good thing he's not a toy poodle, or I could have flown him like a kite! There was damage all over town: trees in the roads, limbs everywhere, billboards and signs down, shingles blown off of roofs, and power poles down. Thousands of people were without electricity all over the state, including our dog training club.

This could not have come at a worse time. We have our first obedience trial in months this weekend, and we really needed some ring time to do some last minute proofing. Classes were canceled last night, so we could not practice or do put thrus. I was beginning to panic, thinking that we would not get a chance to enter a ring until it was for real at the trial. I planned on meeting a couple of people at the club this morning, even though the weather was predicted to be bad. Dedicated? Stupid? Perhaps both. We were going to open the doors for light, however, the sun did not come out at all, so we had to cancel.

Luckily, I got a phone call that the power had been turned back on. Actually, the call said that they drove by the building and they thought the power was back on- why if they drove by didn't they go inside to check is beyond me. So with that concrete information, I decided to run down there at lunch to see how much I had to worry about for this weekend's trial.

I warmed Teddy up with some power walking, then my instructor showed up and called a put thru for us. Teddy did a lot better than our last put thru. His heeling wasn't bad, his recall was fast, he had good retrieves, and he did his broadjump happily. Overall, I was very pleased. He did about as good as he can do. We only had one issue: he broke his stays. This is something he hasn't done in a long time. I think the difference is that he was only lined up with only one other dog and the club building was basically empty and very quiet. He does better when there is a lot going on for him to watch. I'm hoping this won't be an issue this weekend. I have a feeling that if we mess up, it will be on something stupid that we've never done before. I just hope I can keep my big mouth shut, so that I don't praise him before the exercise is over or give an unnecessary second command.

Tomorrow is bath and haircut day, that is if the roads aren't iced over. I always make sure that my dog is well groomed for an obedience trial. I know it doesn't make a difference, but I think dogs should get pretty points!

4 comments:

I started a Rally class with Willie, my apricot Mini. I was very shocked to find that he broke his stay over and over-----normally one of his most reliable commands. I guess we both have some work to do with our boys!